Arts & Entertainment: Upcoming bazaar benefits Special Olympics

The fifth annual Coweta County Shopping Bazaar will be held Saturday, Oct. 13 at the Coweta County Recreation Department’s Multi-Purpose Building on Hospital Road from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

All proceeds from this event will benefit Coweta County Special Olympics. The Coweta County Shopping Bazaar is free to the public. Local vendors will be selling specialty items including cosmetics, jewelry, gifts, arts and crafts, food and much more. Come out and have fun shopping for everyone and support Coweta County’s local Special Olympics program. For more information, email Teresa at cowspecolympics@aol.com or Kelly at kelly.abercrombie@cowetaschools.org .

Coweta County Special Olympics (CCSO) provides year-round sports training and competitions in a variety of individual and team sports for children and adults who are mentally disabled, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, personal growth and independence in conditions where they are accepted, respected and given the chance to become productive citizens of Coweta County. CCSO is currently serving over four hundred children at 27 Coweta schools and adults from Rutledge Productions.

Centre events announced

The Centre for Performing and Visual Arts announces two upcoming events — “Letters Home” on Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. and the Preservation Jazz Band on Oct. 14 at 3 p.m.

“Letters Home” puts the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq front and center by bringing to life actual letters written by soldiers serving in the Middle East. The production is inspired by the New York Times op-ed article “The Things They Wrote” and the subsequent HBO documentary “Last Letters Home,” and additionally uses letters and correspondences from Frank Schaeffer’s books, “Voices From the Front,” “Letters Home From America’s Military Family,” “Faith of Our Sons,” and “Keeping Faith.” The play, without politicizing, gives audiences a powerful portrait of the soldier experience in the ongoing war. The initial production was critically acclaimed and was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for “Outstanding New Play.”

Tickets for Letters Home are $10 for adults and $8 for seniors.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band derives its name from Preservation Hall, the venerable music venue located in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, founded in 1961 by Allan and Sandra Jaffe. The band has traveled worldwide spreading their mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for British Royalty or the King of Thailand, this music embodies a joyful, timeless spirit. Under the auspices of current director, Ben Jaffe, the son of founders Allan and Sandra, Preservation Hall continues with a deep reverence and consciousness of its greatest attributes in the modern day as a venue, band, and record label.

The band began touring in 1963 and for many years there were several bands successfully touring under the name Preservation Hall.

Many of the band’’s charter members performed with the pioneers who invented jazz in the early twentieth century, including Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bunk Johnson. Band leaders over the band’s history include the brothers Willie and Percy Humphrey, husband and wife Billie and De De Pierce, famed pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, and in the modern day Wendall and John Brunious. These founding artists and dozens of others passed on the lessons of their music to a younger generation who now follow in their footsteps like the current lineup.

Tickets for the concert are $12.

For details on either event, or to reserve tickets, go to www.thecentreonline.net .